Oculus premiered about a dozen games ahead of GDC this year, and one that stood out to me was Mage’s Tale for its distinct art style and passion in using VR to fulfill childhood fantasies of becoming a spell-casting magician. Mage’s Tale is an action RPG dungeon crawler where you search for dozens of different potion ingredients to create over 100 different spells, and then battle enemies with variations of your fire, ice, wind, and lightning spells.
LISTEN TO THE VOICES OF VR PODCAST
I talked with the lead designer David Rogers about some of the core gameplay mechanics driving Mage’s Tale, how they inspire exploration by hiding secrets off of the critical path, as well as the tradeoffs between the choices you have to make while progressing your character.
Mage’s Tale was released on June 20th, 2017 as an Oculus exclusive, but will be eventually released on other platforms as well.
‘The Mage’s Tale’ delivers exactly what you’d expect from a classic dungeon crawler, promising real moments of magic and exploration while not challenging the formula too much. Creating and casting magical spells in VR is an awesome experience that I didn’t ever get tired of, but if a sequel is in the works, finer character animation and more locomotion options should be on the docket to turn up the immersion factor. As it stands, NPCs look ripped from the PS2-era, and anyone looking for smooth-turning or smooth forward movement will be sorely disappointed.
On June 20th, action RPG The Mage’s Tale will launch on the Oculus Store. The dungeon crawler from developer inXile Entertainment is optimised for Rift and Touch, set between the events of The Bard’s Tale III: Thief of Fate (1988) and the upcoming The Bard’s Tale IV.
“Mind-bending puzzles, terrifying traps, and hordes of vicious monsters” await in 10 hand-crafted dungeons, amounting to over 10 hours of high-quality gameplay, according to the developer. Announced at GDC 2017 as one of several pieces of ‘high profile content’ for the Oculus platform, The Mage’s Tale is inXile Entertainment’s first major project built from the ground-up for VR, set in the world of classic fantasy RPG The Bard’s Tale.
Heading this article you can see the game’s pre-order trailer and some screenshots below:
Speaking to Road to VR at GDC, lead designer David Rogers explained how players “easily take an hour per dungeon” due to the amount of interesting stuff to look at and secrets to find. While its use of motion controls for spell casting means the game is action-oriented, the studio has drawn on its rich history of RPG development (such as Wasteland 2 and Torment: Tides of Numenera), promising character progression and a rich crafting system that allows for hundreds of different spells to be created.
Debuted at GDC 2017 and announced via their official blog, Oculus offer a first look at some of the titles coming to Rift and Gear VR in 2017. This includes 6 new game reveals across multiple genres, with 4 optimised for Touch and 2 “must haves” for Gear VR.
Having recently teased ‘months of high-profile VR content’ starting with Rock Band VR, Oculus have begun to deliver on that promise at this week’s Game Developers Conference, revealing a list of 2017 titles, including 4 new games for Touch and 2 for Gear VR.
Oculus Rift Games
Blade & Soul
The way of battle is simple: summon the units by grabbing them with your hands. Choose your units wisely, have a strategy of your own and fight until the end. Strong units are crucial to winning the battle. Strengthen your units by training and upgrading them in the lab.
Designed by: NCSoft
Genre: TCG, RTS
Platform: Touch
Release Date: TBA
Price: TBA
Comfort: TBA
Brass Tactics
Brass Tactics takes real-time-strategy to the next level by placing you in the middle of the action on a fantastic clockwork battlefield. Experience the thrill of directly moving and interacting with your clockwork creations: grab structures and place them on the battlefield, and direct your units with the sweep of your hand. Just when you think you’ve mastered the game, raise the stakes by teaming up with other players in co-op mode or go head-to-head in PvP mode.
Designed by: Hidden Path Entertainment
Genre: Classic Real-Time Strategy (RTS)
Platform: Touch
Release Date: Fall 2017
Price: TBA
Comfort: Comfortable
From Other Suns
Your own ship. A crew. Steady work. Things were going well until the Collapse. Now you and half of humanity are trapped on the far side of the wormhole with ruthless pirates, scheming corporations, and worse—new threats from outside known space.
There’s danger at every jump on this side of the wormhole. You and up to two of your friends will tour the sector, upgrading your ship, stockpiling weapons, and fighting for your lives. And when you all die, you’ll discover new challenges in your next playthrough.
Fight and try to save humanity, or just joyride through the galaxy until its extinction. Your call.
Developed By: Gunfire Games
Genre: Action Adventure
Platforms: Oculus Rift and Gear VR
Release Date: Fall 2017
Price: TBA
Comfort Rating: Comfortable
Mage’s Tale
Welcome, apprentice. Don your wizard’s robe and become a mighty conjuror. The corrupted wizard, Gaufroi, has kidnapped your master, Mage Alguin, and it’s up to you to save him. To win the day you must conquer eleven dungeons, from the stinking sewers of Skara Brae to the living tombs of the evil Charn. Mind bending puzzles, terrifying traps, and deadly monsters stand in your way, all perfectly capable of sending you to an early grave.
But worry not. You wield raw elemental power in the palm of your hand, allowing you to sling gouts of flame, javelins of ice, arcs of lightning, and swirling tempests which can finish off any fiend that stands in your way– from the snarkiest goblin to the burliest giant. And as you delve deeper into the depths you’ll find forgotten secrets, ancient lore, and powerful spell reagents with which you can craft increasingly exotic spells to defeat even greater foes. Yes, you may be an apprentice now, but to save your master, this must become your Mage’s Tale.
Designed by: inXile Entertainment, Inc.
Genre: VR Adventure, Puzzle Solving, Action RPG
Platforms: Rift
Release Date: TBA
Price: TBA
Comfort: TBA
Gear VR
Augmented Empire
Augmented Empire is a story-driven tactical RPG set on the island of New Savannah, an isolated neo-noir city divided into three tiers by a social grade system. While the citizens deemed of high societal value live in luxury at the summit, outliers and criminals are forced to live in squalor at the island’s depths.
From the armchair of your secluded hideout, command a team of 6 bioelectronically-enhanced misfits in ‘augmented reality;’ a diorama-scale version of the city rendered before your eyes. Explore the city, develop your skills and battle law-makers and law-breakers alike to mastermind the Revolution.
Designed by: Coatsink Software
Genre: Strategy, Action, Adventure
Platform: Gear VR
Release Date: TBA
Price: TBA
Comfort: Comfortable
Term1nal
You are Flynn Lightman, a highly skilled Avatar Pilot who can control androids from the safety of his apartment using advanced VR hardware. You are contacted by a client to infiltrate STRIDE Industries, a company that specializes in data security and advanced robotics. Your journey takes you into the depths of a heavily defended, high-tech facility as you discover its darker intent.
Dual-character 3rd-person stealth gameplay and immersive 1st person puzzles designed exclusively for Gear VR.
Designed by: Force Field VR
Genre: Action Puzzler
Platform: Gear VR
Release Date: Q2 2017
Price: TBA
Comfort: TBA
The new titles add to a list of compelling upcoming content for the Oculus platform, promising to deliver ‘depth and polish’, covering genres such as RTS, RPG, stealth, puzzle and shooter. Announced via the Oculus Blog, the ‘Year of VR Gaming’ is showcased in this new montage, with more news coming tomorrow.
Oculus has said before that 2017 is all about content for its VR headsets, and it sure proved it today. As part of its showcase for this year’s Game Developers Conference (GDC), the company revealed a slate of new titles heading to both the Oculus Rift and Gear VR in the coming year. There’s a lot of them to get through, so we thought we’d list them below.
We’ve got impressions of each of these games live now, so make sure to follow through for more information and deeper thoughts on each. One thing’s for sure: Rift and Gear owners have a lot of goodness heading their way. Let’s take a look at some new Oculus games.
Esper developer Coatsink is back with this brand new strategy RPG for the Gear VR, channeling classic games like XCOM and Mass Effect 2 for what it says will be a much deeper experience than anything it’s made before. Expect this to be a truly hardcore offering for the mobile VR audience, which isn’t something we often seen.
Trust the makers of Defense Grid 2 to craft a compelling strategy game for VR. Unlike the studio’s last VR game, though, Brass Tactics is designed for use with Oculus Touch. It’s a multiplayer game that focuses on tactics, getting players to utilize huge armies to wipe out their opponents. It looks like a colorful take on the gengre, and heaps of fun.
The developer’s of Chronos return with a much more ambitious game. This is a procedurally-generated space adventure that has all the elements you need to make your sci-fi dreams come true. Team up with friends to maintain your ship and visit other worlds, battling dangerous enemies on the way.
This was technically announced last week but we got a much clearer picture of it at GDC. inXile Entertainment is known for RPGs like the Wasteland series, but it’s turning to another classic genre, the dungeon crawler, for its VR debut. Mage’s Tale will be a lengthy action game that fully utilizes Touch to put you right in the loot raiding action.
The developers of Landfall only just released their debut VR game, but they’re already onto the next. Term1nal is an intriguing entry into the stealth genre for Gear VR, casting you as a hacker that must infiltrate the facility of a massive corporation using robots.
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We also got updated hands-on with some games already announced for both platforms, including Singspace and Dragon Front, which is getting Oculus Touch support. Check out our updated previews below:
Mage’s Tale is a new title in the works for Oculus Touch by inXile Entertainment that wants to deliver a meaty VR adventure RPG that has you dwelling in dark dungeons for some 10 hours.
Some of the best VR games out there have users begging to have them made into longer and deeper VR experiences. Mage’s Tale hopes to give hungry Oculus Touch users a meaty experience to gnaw on that the developer says will take around 10 hours. Our video interview heading this article details what players can expect from the game.
That’s impressive for a game that isn’t a wave shooter, nor is it procedurally generated. All of the dungeons are hand crafted by the production team, and are littered with secrets, according to one of the game’s creators. The title’s length will also be met with a crafting system that lets you design hundreds of variations of four base specs, all of which are cast with a physical hand motion .
The game’s release date or price have not yet been set, but the it’s attempt at depth, secrets, and polish looks to be worth keeping an eye on.
Oculus premiered about a dozen games ahead of GDC this year, and one that stood out to me was Mage’s Tale for its distinct art style and passion in using VR to fulfill childhood fantasies of becoming a spell-casting magician. Mage’s Tale is an action RPG dungeon crawler where you search for dozens of different potion ingredients to create over 100 different spells, and then battle enemies with variations of your fire, ice, wind, and lightning spells.
